While I desperately want to agree that y'all are right, and we'll be keeping our planes, I feel some things should be pointed out, devil's advocate style.

If the birds go to, say, OO, well Delta no longer has to fund the compass SOC, etc. Adding our planes to the OO fleet would mean some increased costs, but it's also pretty cost effective to consolidate the birds because of this. Cheaper to increase the size of one of their programs than run two separate ones.

Not to mention OO would operate much more efficiently and have much better performance. I hate OO's guts, but they simply run a better ship than we do. It's not hard to, cpz is a mess. Literally, 35% of our Delta flights depart delayed, every single day, all year long. It drives me to madness every day watching the clock hit D+1 on every departure.

We have been missing Delta's performance goals and been in the penalty section on/off for months (years even). Why should they uphold their contract with us, if we can't even hold up our end? They took the 170's away as soon as they could.

For an airline that wants to be nothing but the best, this doesn't look good to DL.

Neither does our MX program. Embraer itself has expressed that Compass trashes their airplanes like no other US regional. (Blame the management, not the mechanics IMHO). Delta is aware of this.

Furthermore, when we ask on the company call about American, management seems confident that we are their top performer and shouldn't be worried. When we ask about Delta, they get uncomfortable and more or less say "do your best and let us hope we don't get the axe." Delta has said in the past they want to consolidate.

On top of all this, to add to the rumor mill (true but not sure how credible), I've personally been told by a DL ALPA guy to "expect some bad news in 2019"

Take all that with a grain of salt. If we DO get the contract extended, I'd call this place the best regional to be at, period.